One of the really interesting developments in the use of spaces like YouTube have been in the creation of instructional videos. Nobody has embraced this capability with the enthusiasm of Simon Khan owner and creator of the Khan Academy. This series of videos are simple in structure but powerful in intent, the aim being to provide students with an instructional resource that they can replay over and over again.

This article from GOOD Education explores from more of the Khan Academy story and the challenges and opportunities it offers traditional schooling.

A few years ago, a New York City hedge fund analyst Salman Khan was tutoring his cousins. They lived halfway across the country however, and in order to make it easier to coordinate their schedules, he started making short video versions of his tutorials. And then a funny thing happened. His cousins reported that they liked learning from his videos better than from him.

At first Khan was surprised. Why wouldn’t they want the ability to actually interact with him? But then he thought about it from their standpoint and it began to make more sense. Having a video made it so they could repeat and replay anything that they didn’t understand as many times as necessary. They could refer back to weeks-old lessons without having to feel embarrassed about it. They could learn without another person standing over their shoulder asking, “do you understand yet?”